Down This Road
by Sakusha
Summary: Sometimes the choices you make in life take you down roads you never though to take, and sometimes the same road leads you back to where it all began. Implied shounin ai, het


No real warnings here, other than implied shounin ai, and het. Nothing even remotely graphic.

**

* * *

**

**Down this Road**

* * *

The windows are open, though it does little to stilt the summer heat. To tired, or maybe just to lazy, I find that I don't really have it in me to get up to turn the air on. Instead I take comfort that it will be evening soon enough.

Sitting in my recliner, I lay my book in my lap. As much as I might try, I can't seem to get into the next chapter. I look around the room, at the pictures lining my walls. There are so many memories here. Pictures of the kids. Anniversaries. Vacations. My wedding. Then there are picture of before. One with all of us together, celebrating the end of the war. One with Fei in a crisp clean new Preventer uniform. He looked so noble and proud. There's one with Quatre standing over Tro with a pair of scissors. That's one of my favorites. The look on Trowa is priceless. Then there's one of you and me. Your pretending to strangle me with my braid. I'm laughing, and your trying very hard not to smile. Good memories. Old memories. I close my eyes for just a moment to dwell on them.

A soft knock on the door startles me and I open my eyes. Blinking, I realize I had fallen asleep. The sunlight through the window is much dimmer than it was when I closed my eyes. I set my book aside and get up to answer the door.

Opening the door, I am startled, but maybe not as surprised as I would have thought I would be. You, standing on my porch after all this time.

We stare at each other for a moment. Each taking in the changes life has brought us.

I notice your hair, not quite as full I remember, but divinely handsome peppered with gray. There was a time when I would have laughed at the thought of being old enough to see such a color touch your crown. Or mine for that matter.

I could have sworn that you were taller, bigger... or is it that my memories of you held so much more grandeur than real life? I can't really remember. It's been to long.

There are soft lines around your eyes. Eyes that have laughed and have cried. They have seen hope and sorrow, joy and tears. They still sparkle like they once did so long ago, but now they have the maturity of time weighed upon them.

Here we stand, you on my porch, me at the threshold of my home of many years. This scene has played out before. Different place, different time. _We_ were very different then.

We were boys. We were young and foolish and had not a clue about life. God, we were so impetuous.

I'm too old to play the blame game. There really isn't anyone to blame. Not 'I' or 'him' or 'you' or 'me'. It was that we were simply too young to deal with something so tenuous. Rash in our decisions we lashed out at each other, simply because there was no one else left to fight. And we were good at it, weren't we? Fighting. We couldn't let go of it. Because if you took that away, all we really had left was fear.

It's amazing what we come to understand when we are older.

We went our own ways, you and I. There were weddings, children, mortgages and graduations. Whatever had gone on in our past, we held no bitterness with one another. We even talked occasionally. Birthdays, memorial days.

I got to be the first one to hold your newborn daughter. Both of them, in fact. You brought my son ice cream when he had his tonsils taken out. His favorite. I remembered that you called to ask. You were always thoughtful that way.

The car accident was unexpected. You came to my wife's funeral. I was glad that you were there to support me, and to encourage my son to finish collage. I think it was you that gave him that extra push.

Last year I returned the favor and supported you when it was time for you to lay your own wife to rest. Cancer was as hard on you as it was for her. Your granddaughter will carry her name well, I have no doubt.

Two people have been down this road before. They were not ready to travel its path. But perhaps now that we have learned about what it is to live with ourselves, we can also live with each other as well. I would like that more than you know...or maybe you do know and that's why your here. You want that too.

Not a word is spoken as I open my door further and step aside to let you in. You hesitate on the threshold for just a moment, before stepping into my life once again.

* * *


End file.
